Good Griff!

by Von Snootingham

Interlude - From the Newspapers of the World 2

From the Newspapers of the World:

2- The Equestria Daily, May 15, 1005

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Amid Controversy, Brothers Are Entrepreneurs To The Core

The front gate of the Flimflam brothers’ new state-of-art Canterlot facility

By Hot Tip
Canterlot - A ribbon cutting ceremony yesterday attended by Princess Celestia marked the official start of operations for the Flim Flam Firm’s latest cider distillery. Located on Canterlot’s south side, this is the company’s first facility in central Equestria producing the popular Flim Flam’s Finest Cider.

A true success story, the Flimflam brothers have become celebrities in the world of business in the last few years for their meteoric rise. A mere five years ago, the brothers were drifting from town to town, scrabbling for bits to pay off creditors after two failed business attempts. But then they hit upon the million-bit idea that would make them a household name almost overnight. Flam Flimflam, the technical wunderkind of the pair, designed and built the prototype for an automated cider press and still which Flim Flimflam, the strategist, filed a patent for. Flim Flam Firm was founded shortly after.

The brother’s first facility was little more than a single machine operating out of a rented barn in Whinnyapplis. This was not unusual, as cider has traditionally been created in small batches by local outfits, usually families. Never before had such a wide-spread centralized cider production been attempted, and such plentiful access to the ever in-demand cider in the always thirsty Whinnyapplis made the brothers rich. This quickly allowed them to expand operations to a new state-of-the-art facility that allowed production so efficient that supply outpaced demand and they began to export cider to other cities.

Cider has always been a luxury commodity across Equestria, so to suddenly be so accessible in such surplus allowed the brothers to build new facilities in Whinnypeg, Marewaukee, and Salt St. Mareie. They then expanded outside the Whinnysconsin region with facilities in Foalmaha and Gallopston. Now, the Canterlot plant is up and running, with another planned for Palomino Springs, Califoalnia.

While the general public mainly recognizes Flim Flam Firm for being the creators of everypony’s favorite drink, the company is noteworthy in the business world for very different reasons. Such large-scale machine-based production, which Flim and Flam call “an assembly line”, is revolutionary, allowing unprecedented levels of output with minimal input of pony labor. It has sparked a race among other industrial companies, sending them scrambling to “modernize” their own operations.

But success hasn't come without a cost. Concerns have been raised about the impact Flim Flam’s factories are having on Equestria. Reports have been coming in about increased numbers of health complaints in weather ponies in areas around distilleries compared to the general population. One preliminary reports a 400% increase in cases of respiratory illness and suggests that the smoke these distilleries are pumping into the sky may be harmful and breathing it in large amounts such as a weather pony might is the cause. There is no word yet on any ill effects from the liquid waste being emptied into rivers.

In addition to physical problems, there are many ponies who claim unsavory dealings with the brothers and their company. While there are few details about their lives before their rise to prominence, since then reports of shady business practices, running local cider makers out of business, exploiting workers in poor conditions have run rampant. Most notably, the Element of Honesty herself claims Flim and Flam were con artists who attempted to steal her family farm.

Such controversy came to a head yesterday when the ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate the opening of the new Canterlot facility was disrupted by protesters. The group, led by the Element of Honesty herself, came armed with signs and chants, and in the case of the Element, rope. Princess Celestia was scheduled to cut the ribbon at 10 am, but the protesters formed a line in front of the entrance and threatened anypony who came near. The Royal Guard was called in to disperse the crowd, though there were no arrests. The ribbon was finally cut just after 1 pm.

Captain Aegis of the Royal Guard went on record with the following: “The Guard of course has no problem with peaceful protests as it’s the the right of all Equestrians. But these ponies just got a little rowdy and we had to step in. The fact is the Princess was there, and we’re in the habit of taking every precaution where the Princess is involved. Miss Apple assured us they meant no harm and they wouldn’t cause any more trouble. I know her personally and trust her, so we let all offending parties off with a warning.”

No representative for the protesters could be reached.

Author's Note:

I just wanted to give a shoutout to random reader Starfiction at the end of this one. He JUST dumped Good Griff! into his dead story folder last week, right before this updated for the first time in a year. How’s that for timing? Thanks for believing in me, buddy!

So yeah, hey there! First time updating in a year. And it's just a measly, crappy interlude chapter. But I did do a minor rewrite on the previous chapter. It's so minor you'd never be able to tell for the most part. Except I added a whole extra scene on the end. And the next real chapter is already in progress and should be around hopefully pretty soon. So yeah.

Comments

[Starfiction]

Well I do move all Stories I really like into my Elysian Fields Folder after a year without updates. Those I do not care about that much I just dump. I got a few chapters out of it, so it has a certain success rate

[Saris Daddy]

it's not dead you won't believe how happy I am to see this update in my feed

[Von Snootingham]

7219881 Hey, it's cool, I was just joshin' ya. I just thought it was funny that at EXACTLY the same time I opened up a tab to start writing this on the 4th, I happened to check fimfiction and saw you'd moved this to the dead story zone. I was just tickled by the timing. It's all good.

7219941 And hopefully I'll be able to actually finish the damn thing! Thanks for sticking with me!

[Starfiction]

7225399
I know, nothing to worry about

[Alkarasu]

Hmm. Interestingly enough, it wasn't in my update notifications.
WHY???

[Von Snootingham]

7229627
Mmmmmmagic?

[Alkarasu]

7230306
I wonder how many more updates this magic has hidden...

[Von Snootingham]

7236474 Thanks. I've always intended to finish this. It's just a matter of laziness.

7231410 My outline has six more chapters, plus interludes, but who knows? I have a habit of drawing stuff out and having to make extra chapters. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 were all supposed to be about a chapter and a half, and that got drawn out. 10 and 11 were going to be one chapter, but I had to split that up because it was getting so long. As it stands, 11 ended up being over 15 thousand words and could probably stood to be split up again. Chapter 12 is On the Road Again, but it was originally called Lone Wolf and Cub because that was my next planned chapter. But the rest stop scene got so long that I had to split it off from the following events into its own chapter. So yeah, I tend to ramble on and need to make extra chapters, so there might be more, but my plan right now is:
On the Road Again
->FF article
Lone Wolf and Cub
-> unspecified interlude
I Fought the Law
->Bones article
The Sorrowful Life
->Sunny article
The Wright Stuff
->profile - beatles
Can't Stop Now/ Born to Run/ Naked Villainy / Seem A Saint, Play The Devil
->Bone's Poems
Not With a Bang, But a Whimper

and then an epilogue which I can't give the title of without spoiling something. (also, some of the chapters already have their subtitle, which I orignally left in here because they'yre interesting and show a little bit of my process, but they kind of gave an idea of what happens, so I edited the post to remove them.) The epilogue idea kept getting more ambitious and long, and ended up split into two parts with their own interlude, but then it flooded over and I decided that to properly tell what happens aftet this story would require an entire other story. Which would probably lead to two other stories that occur side by side. So yeah, I have some big ideas for these characters that span quite a ways, but it's just a question of actually getting it done.

I've also been considering re-organizing the way the chapters are divided into parts again, not that that makes much difference.

[ShadeJak]

My 5s days are on haitus indefinitely I decided to discontinue A Love For Madness but may one day resume The Tunes Are A-Changin when I got the drive again because other participants dropped and I was left with no real idea what to do anymore from there. Hopefully at some point I'll finish it.

[Kilobytes]

Well, I can only hope this gets finished someday I suppose. Guess I can only hope.

[Von Snootingham]

8021671
You and me both. I have the entire story plotted out. It's just a matter of actually sitting down and writing it.

[Kilobytes]

8022985 well, I can take comfort in then I guess.